UCSF hospital workers ready to strike Monday

Updated 3:44 pm, Sunday, May 6, 2018

The Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF is among the affected facilities.

The Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF is among the affected facilities.

Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle 2017

UCSF hospital workers ready to strike Monday

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Tens of thousands of health care workers are scheduled to go on strike Monday across the University of California system, including UCSF Medical Center, which rescheduled surgeries and delayed cancer treatments for several hundred patients.

While UC’s six medical centers will be affected the most, every part of the 10-campus system will feel the impact, with workers at student health centers and in some other parts of the campuses also walking out.

The planned three-day walkout is an effort by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 to persuade the university system to increase salaries and address racial and gender pay inequalities.

“It is a major disruption,” said Sheila Antrum, senior vice president and chief operating officer for UCSF Health, on Parnassus Avenue. “We have patients who have been counting on getting their procedures done, people who are counting on infusions who are being delayed.”

The strike involves 9,000 University of California janitors, cooks, security guards and truck drivers and 15,000 vocational nurses, respiratory therapists, MRI and radiation technologists represented by the union, which has reached an impasse in negotiations with the university.

Claire Doan, a UC spokeswoman, said the union has asked for raises of nearly 20 percent over three years, “and we think that’s unreasonable.” The hospital has offered 3 percent annual raises over four years.

John de los Angeles, the union spokesman, said the real issue is that since 2005 the top administrators’ share of the payroll has gone up 64 percent. Women of color make 21 percent less than white men, and the black workforce in the UC system has declined 37 percent since 1996, he said.

“It’s about inequality, particularly income, racial and gender inequality,” de los Angeles said. “We’ve been raising these issues for quite some time, and we would like them to come out with meaningful proposals to address them, but our proposals have been met with deaf ears.”

The California Nurses Association, representing 14,000 nurses at UC’s six major medical centers and 10 student health centers, announced it will hold a sympathy strike Tuesday and Wednesday. The University Professional and Technical Employees, which represents social workers, pharmacists and physician assistants, also plans to walk out.

In all, 10,800 workers from the three unions are expected to walk off the job at UCSF. Statewide, about 25,000 AFSCME workers plan to strike. The total number could reach 53,000 with the addition of sympathy strikers.

Antrum said UCSF has rescheduled more than 300 surgeries and 800 cancer patient appointments at its Mission Bay and Parnassus Avenue campuses. All elective procedures have been delayed, and 1,900 replacement workers have been requested.

The UCSF emergency department on Parnassus and the ambulatory clinics for people with acute illnesses, such as the flu, will remain open. Patients with critical needs are being directed to affiliates, such as St. Mary’s in San Francisco and John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Antrum said.